Robert Meister, in his book After Evil, sheds light on a politics of human rights, especially the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator/beneficiary in the twentieth century at the beginning of the book.

Meister states that the concept of forgiveness and vengeance remains as moral imperative to the victim after evil has stopped and before justice comes. According to Meister, forgiveness is only way that releases the people from the fetters of consequences, in other words, it can only bring a new beginning. Vengeance, however, has a possibility to lead a cycle of future vengeance, therefore, justice cannot be achieved. He even argues that forgiveness might sometimes be the best revenge.

He, however, points out that “the apparent need to choose between forgiveness and vengeance arises from the standpoint of former victims who are still unsure about whether they have won” (p.9). This argument in particular reminds me of the issue of comfort women, girls and women who were forced into sex slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The existence of the victim of comfort women has been denied by Japanese government for a long time. Recently, South Korean government and Japanese government agreed on a negotiation for indemnification for the victim, but the victim strongly complained that it was unfair and injustice agreement between two governments without the participation of the victim.

The victim of forced sex slavery by the Japanese Army may be seen as they have won because the Japanese government admitted their past crimes by agreeing on the negotiation. It, however, cannot be understood as a complete victory because the Japanese government still hesitates to announce it publicly and internationally, rather they admitted the victim only in South Korea. Meister argues that the past victims never really win. We now know that historical injustice exists behind this issue, but the victim cannot do anything – forgiveness or vengeance – at all. The tragedy from the twentieth century still continues in nowadays; there is no a new beginning and no justice. How can the victim of comfort women issues be free from its chain? The discourse of human rights is still in question.

In the conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo, Sir Isaiah Berlin, who strongly advocated the value of negative freedom, admits that society would not be existed without some authority. He too worries that the liberty of the individual could be intervened by the authority, but it was almost impossible to assert that individuals can live without society, even for Berlin. The individual, unfortunately, cannot be completely free; it is inevitable to get involved in social relations. Law, from my previous perspective, was simply a sort of societal promise that the people must follow and a method to protect the people from any harm. However, my point of view on law has changed after I read Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish which is in the reading list.

A public torture or execution was the most popular spectacle in France until the eighteenth century, however, the role of physical punishment as a public performance was completely disappeared from the nineteenth century. Torture or execution in front of the crowd was no longer enough to punish the offender effectively. The reform of the entire economy of punishment, according to Foucault, turned out by the emergence of a new theory of law and crime. I suddenly have begun to get suspicious about the position of law in the context of our day-to-day life. I thought the role of law as protecting justice and the individual freedom within society. Law, however, in the Discipline and Punish, seemed like an apparatus to control the liberty of the individual and even the individual themselves. I have begun to think that not only the criminal are regulated by law, but also the innocent are not entirely free from the power of it. Every human beings are existed under the surveillance of law. Law produces disciplines in society, disciplines then create individuals. Foucault’s work eventually has caused me to suspect law itself in various ways and to focus on the study of law.

As a first blog post, I would like to open up the question: does law aim at protecting the people or controlling them? I hope to find the answer through the course.